Power and Privilege

Digital open source information — including the videos and photographs that people post to social media and other publicly accessible platforms — is increasingly valued as a critical source of evidence. While investigators have repeatedly established the value of open source information for researching a range of crimes, there is a subset of crimes that investigators have struggled to address with digital open sources — namely, sexual violence. In this article, we report on findings pulled from our interviews with international investigators and gender experts with regards to the perceived strengths and weaknesses of integrating digital open source information into international criminal investigations of sexual violence. More specifically, we elaborate on three insights into how open source investigations may be refined to better respect and protect the interests of survivors: by considering contextual issues related to ethics, power, and privilege, including the identity of the investigator and of the victims; by integrating a gender analysis and an intersectional analysis into online investigation planning; and by being thoughtful about consent, privacy, trauma and control — including who determines what happens with open source information and how such information is used in courts. We conclude with a discussion of what is needed to strengthen the efficacy and ethics of sexual violence investigations through the use of digital open sources

A Socio-Legal Intersectional Analysis of the Role of Technology in the Investigation of Conflict-Related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

The role of technology, including the use of digital open sources, is rapidly expanding in international criminal investigations. Modern armed conflicts are being documented in a manner never before possible and the amount of relevant contemporaneous information available to investigators would have been inconceivable in the past. Access to technology further affords opportunities to those affected by conflict-related violence to better document and illuminate the crimes perpetrated against them. This new reality potentially provides possibilities to transform and democratize international criminal justice processes and help better secure accountability for atrocity crimes. However, the use of technologies may simultaneously inflict invisibilities and perpetuate bias, including regarding the investigation and documentation of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). It is therefore crucial that international criminal investigators and prosecutors of SGBV atrocity crimes employ an ethical, comprehensive, and consistent methodological approach to the use of technology. It is submitted that approaches based on intersectional and gender theories provide the most complete methodological approach, one cognizant of the lived realities of survivors and sensitive to the potentials for harm. Such approaches will help minimize invisibilities and bias and provide investigators with the most comprehensive and relevant contextual information necessary to investigate these crimes ethically, responsibly, and competently. This thesis examines the historical and contemporaneous invisibilization of SGBV atrocity crimes and outlines arguments for, and approaches to, the use of intersectional theoretical methodologies and analyses in the use of digital open sources for the investigation of SGBV atrocity crimes